One or more aspect of the present invention relate to floor tiles for a data center floor.
Data centers are large computer rooms in which a large number of servers are organized. Consequently, a large amount of heat is generated by the servers in operation, which requires effective cooling of the servers in the data centers to ensure that the servers operate within acceptable thermal parameters, e.g. below a critical operating temperature.
In order to achieve such effective cooling, the data center may be organized in so-called hot aisles and cold aisles. Server racks may separate the hot aisles from the cold aisles, with the servers in the server racks typically arranged to draw cold air from the cold aisles to cool the servers in the racks and expel the heated air into the hot aisles. A computer room air conditioning (CRAC) unit draws in air from the hot aisles, typically through ceiling tiles of the computer room and returns the cooled air to the cold aisles.
In order to facilitate the return of the cooled air by the CRAC unit, the data centers are usually provided with a modular floor that is raised above the floor of the data center, such that the cold air flow can be fed into the clearing underneath the elevated modular floor and fed into the cold aisles through openings in the raised floor. For example, the raised floor may comprise at least some floor tiles that have air gaps, e.g. perforations and/or grates. The modular floor typically comprises a grid of floor tiles, wherein the floor tiles in the cold aisles for instance may contain the air gaps to allow cold air to be fed into the cold aisles.
Cable management in such data centers is typically provided under the elevated modular floor. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,716,602 B2 discloses cable grommets for use with raised floor tiles and EP 2 136 447 A1 discloses a cable management system for managing electrical cables in a raised floor grid system.
A particular challenge in such data centers is maintenance or repairs in which access to the electrical or network cables underneath the elevated modular floor is required. This typically requires the removal of a floor tile to provide access to the cables, which has the drawback of altering the air flow through the elevated modular floor, thereby potentially compromising the temperature control in the data center. In addition, such removed floor tiles cause health and safety concerns as people operating in the data center may fall through the hole created by the removal of the floor tile, thus causing risk of injury.